Kasturirangan report: Organisations come together to make joint submission to strengthen and finalise 7th ESA draft

A group of organisations from Karnataka have made a joint submission to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and the Karnataka government to strengthen and finalise the seventh draft notification on the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA).

The report, jointly submitted by Bangalore Environment Forum (Bengaluru), Fridays for Future (Bengaluru), Green Lives (Shivamogga), Jana Sangrama Parishad (Shivamogga), Mapping Malnad (Bengaluru), Paryavarani Foundation (Belagavi), Sangatya (Karkala), United Conservation Movement (Udupi), and Human Rights Foundation (Udupi), calls for stronger ecological safeguards, corrected ESA boundaries, effective monitoring and enforcement, and official translations in local languages.

Noting that six previous draft notifications have lapsed since the process began in August 2011, the report stresses the need to “strengthen the seventh draft to reflect today’s worsening ecological realities, and finalise the Western Ghats ESA Notification without further delay.”